The issue of that strange letter signed Hamlet has been unjustly neglected by the commentators. The text is strange because prince Hamlet could not attest himself as being poor at poetry since he proved his abilities in the scene with the actors. His inclination to iambic verses and hexameter is evident, and those poor choree verses could not be created by him.
Now it has become evident that Prince Hamlet had a half-brother who was a real son to king Hamlet. Therefore, the 'real' Horatio's name must be that of his father's, i.e., Hamlet.
Horatio was present when pregnant Ophelia attempted to speak to the Queen, and guessed that their relations were to be disclosed. That meant he had either to marry her or to be killed by Laertes. The situation became even more critical with Hamlet's unexpected return: Hamlet demanded to fetch him immediately, and Horatio could not leave the situation uncontrolled. Instead of delivering Hamlet's message to the Royal couple, he sent a messenger instead and hastily drowned Ophelia, then rushed to fetch Hamlet. All that explains Horatio's strange behavior at the grave-yard.
Featuring Horatio as unscrupulous seducer of Ophelia, the Mousetrap also happens to be a multi-plot satirical drama staged to prove not the King's guilt but rather the nature of Horatio's relations with Ophelia. It is obvious that the 'authorship' of that inner drama belongs to Hamlet who suspected there was something wrong with the relations between Horatio and Ophelia. The performance was interrupted by the King who recognized himself in the Prologue. According to V.i, the battle with king Fortinbras and the consequent marriage with Gertrude took place exactly thirty years before the described events began. In the Prologue, the thirty years of happy married life are mentioned three times in only four lines (both in Q2 and F1). (In Q1, the period of marriage was mentioned only once as forty years.) This becomes an important feature in evaluating Shakespeare's vision of the relations between his contemporaries featured in Hamlet as Queen Gertrude, her consort the King, and her stepson Horatio-Hamlet (see the concluding chapters.)
Concealing the truth, the Narrator composed a collage incorporating the text of Hamlet's Mousetrap as the major portion of what he would publish as Shakespeare's drama. The satirical object of the Mousetrap was Hamlet's half-brother Horatio whom Hamlet featured in his pentameter drama as the Narrator. Apparently, the satirical intention of Hamlet as it has been manifested in the Mousetrap coincides with that of the whole Shakespeare's novel. In both, the Narrator is the same: it's Horatio. Factually, he is announced as the Narrator in the final part of the Mousetrap which coincides with the end of Shakespeare's novel. Moreover, Horatio promises to tell the story to the 'unsatisfied' 'from his [Hamlet's] mouth.' The true content of the whole Shakespeare's work is the description of Horatio's manner of narrating: he extensively employed the 'original' text of Hamlet's Mousetrap.
The style of Horatio's narration confirms the above conclusion. In his letter to Ophelia, he confessed he was not good at poetry. Having employed for his collage large portions of Hamlet's pentameter text, he appears to be unable to convert 'his own' prosaic passages into pentameter so as to ultimately conceal the fact of the falsifying.
The inner structure of Hamlet's Mousetrap is very similar to that of Shakespeare's novel Hamlet. In both, Horatio has been featured as the Narrator, a kind of a 'proxy author'. In both, prince Hamlet is featured as a victim of Horatio's machinations. From the point of view of the structure, as the 'titular author' of the Mousetrap, Hamlet performs the same functions Shakespeare does as the author of the whole novel. In this sense, the image of prince Hamlet is the replication of the figure of the titular Author, Shakespeare.
There follows the conclusion: in Hamlet, Shakespeare depicted himself as a university graduate of royal origin.
Chapter V: He who 'reports Hamlet and his cause aright To the unsatisfied.'
Copyright © Alfred Barkov 2000, 2003